An excellent year. The blackcurrants enjoyed the thick manure mulch they received last autumn, washed around their roots by gallons of rain through the following six-odd months. They also grew unencumbered by the usual bindweed and horsetail as they now have planks forming a small raised bed around them, which have been kept scrupulously weeded.

My only real regret is that I checked them for ripeness one weekend and they weren’t quite there, but just two days later, on a quick water-only trip, I suddenly had to harvest the lot as they had started to carpet the ground.

I need to be even more vigilant next year for the precise time of ripening. Even so I made a couple of batches of wonderful-tasting sorbet and some fantastic fools. I’m drooling just to write about them.

I have thinned them and given them a new manure blanket. They should be nicely tucked up in bed for the winter, here’s to next year…

Score 9/10